hey,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I was doing some thinking earlier today (amazing I know) about how life has played out thus far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Never did I ever think that I’d be in the position I am now with a steady and good-paying job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I never thought that I would have a job that would allow me to work from home full-time. That allowed me the opportunity to not miss a day with my last child (who is now 2?!?). I’ll take it for as long as I can get it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I never thought that in my late 30s, I would still feel like a fraud, an imposter. Everything we have seems to hang on the balance of the fact that others see me better than I see myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I live in Oregon. Better yet, in the Portland area. That was a dream of mine that I thought might never come to pass. With that being said, I never desired to live on the east side of Portland. Yet here I am. It took us a while to embrace it, and now we love being so close to waterfall hikes and the gorge. This far-far east area that we live in also cools down quicker than the Portland metro, so we generally get more snow and cooler evenings in the summer. It’s a win, but never one I thought I’d ever consider or want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I never thought that we would struggle as much as we had to find a church and get involved. My views on the church and faith, and everything that goes along with that have dramatically changed. I didn’t see that happening. I always considered it a struggle – but did not foresee it lasting this long. Never did I ever think that I was blinded to very toxic traits within the church and that the church would ultimately choose hate over love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I never thought that we would move to be near the wife’s family, only to never see said family. I never thought that it was an error in judgment that I considered our relationship with them to be special. I never thought there would be so many walls that would likely never be broken down due to a lack of communication. I never thought that our kids would not have relationships with their cousins aunts and uncles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I never thought that I would have 3 kids. I never thought I would have any kids born in Arizona, little loan two. I never thought we would buy our first house in Arizona, or that we would grow to love the southwest. I never thought I’d have a kid born in Portland, as a true Oregonian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I never thought that my brother would grow up and choose to not have a relationship with me or my family. I never thought he would get addicted to drugs or beat his girlfriend while never divorcing (or seeing) his wife. I also never thought that he would continue that practice for 10+ years (and counting). Going so far as to get the police called on him because he threatened to kill her with a knife. I never thought he would have a child and have it taken away by the state because of neglect (and the choice of the aforementioned drugs). That he would spend years of his life behind bars and make countless empty promises to make things better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I never thought I would tell my brother about the birth of my children, only to have him forget that I ever told him in the first place. Then argue with me about how many kids I have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I never thought I’d live through a global pandemic or a celebrity presidency. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Never did I ever think that I would consider moving out of Oregon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
just Pray<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
hey, So I was doing some thinking earlier today (amazing I know) about how life has played out thus far. Never did I ever think that I’d be in the position I am now with a steady and good-paying job. I never thought that I would have a job that would allow me to work…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11820,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/mar13-nvr.jpg?fit=1190%2C893&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1629,"url":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/2012\/12\/01\/growing-up\/","url_meta":{"origin":8348,"position":0},"title":"Growing Up","author":"me@jshox.com","date":"December 1, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Isn't it funny? I was watching Emily Owens M.D. this past week and there was a moment when she said something to the effect of: I thought I was past all my awkwardness and at this age I didn't think I'd still be dealing with what I had to in\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1475,"url":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/2012\/07\/09\/where-has-the-time-gone\/","url_meta":{"origin":8348,"position":1},"title":"Where has the time gone?","author":"me@jshox.com","date":"July 9, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Where is the time gone? Things have been fairly busy as of late. Last week I applied at a engineering firm for a administrative assistant position. I'm not sure how it went. The people seem nice, but I can never really tell how interviews have went. There have been times\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":68,"url":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/2003\/11\/27\/68\/","url_meta":{"origin":8348,"position":2},"title":"New Entry. I was disturbed\u2026","author":"me@jshox.com","date":"November 27, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"New Entry. I was disturbed tonight. JJ no longer wanted to talk about Jesus, but instead - make fun of him. He sent me a picture that made fun of Jesus. Then he said \"all hail jesus\" He talked to Emily, saying it was a friend of his that sent\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7354,"url":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/2015\/02\/15\/2015-february\/","url_meta":{"origin":8348,"position":3},"title":"2015 – February part 1","author":"me@jshox.com","date":"February 15, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Man time has really gone by quickly. It is already February. I never thought I'd have a wife with a one-year-old, a steady job but no place to live. The world is a crazy place. A rare thing happened: on the morning that we had to be out (February 1st)\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/feb2.jpg?fit=931%2C931&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/feb2.jpg?fit=931%2C931&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/feb2.jpg?fit=931%2C931&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/feb2.jpg?fit=931%2C931&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":236,"url":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/2004\/10\/14\/236\/","url_meta":{"origin":8348,"position":4},"title":"HeyInteresting day...I never.. I make\u2026","author":"me@jshox.com","date":"October 14, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"HeyInteresting day...I never.. I make a rule.. I never give out my last name.. at work.. Were not required to.. so I never do.\u00a0 Today a guy was giving me all this crap about an appointment he had but somehow it got lost.\u00a0 So I assured him it was set\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":861,"url":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/2011\/01\/25\/861\/","url_meta":{"origin":8348,"position":5},"title":"Christmas, New Years and my\u2026","author":"me@jshox.com","date":"January 25, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Christmas, New Years and my birthday have all passed. As a new year is upon us, we are again moving at the speed of light. My family visited my brother in Washington over the holiday (Christmas). \u00a0It went rather well. \u00a0There were not many blow ups. \u00a0Only a minor one\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8348"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11821,"href":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8348\/revisions\/11821"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}